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Chapter Four: Security and Privacy
- University of Ottawa Press
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CHAPTER FOUR SECURITY AND PRIVACY INTRODUCTION Since September 11, 2001, many national governments have been emboldened to undertake aggressive, preventive strategies aimed at public safety and the circumventing of terrorism. As a result, new technologies viewed during the 1990s as primarily a platform for electronic commerce are now front and centre in underpinning government efforts to gather, process, and share information to maximizethe prospects for collectivesecurity.This expanded security imperative carries important consequences for individual identities and personal privacy: one prominent CEO has even questioned the feasibility of safeguardingprivacy in an increasingly virtual and interconnected world. Others worry that aggressive security action by government authorities may unnecessarily trump personal and market freedoms, cornerstones of democracy and capitalism, while fostering enlarged and secretive bureaucracies insufficiently accountable for their actions. The virtualization of security and the implications for privacy also carry enormous consequences for business. First, digital security is increasingly a networked challenge as online connectivity and interoperable computer systems enjoin all sectors (and increasingly all countries) in a manner that defies centralized safeguards and controls. Second, private 97 Business and Government in Canada companies often possess the very informationon consumers that governments believe they need to target threatening activity: new sectoral tensions are thus apparent in terms of the legal and less formal obligations of companies to collaborate with government on the one hand while appropriately accounting for the rights and interests of their customers on the other. For other companies, however, this expanded security creates new opportunities to sell technological systems and services to public sector bodies —further intensifying lobbying efforts as well as the sort of collaborative activity examined in the preceding chapter. With both commercial opportunities and security threats transnational in scope, countries must navigate these relational governance challenges not only domestically but also beyond traditional notions of national borders. NETWORKED SECURITY Today'sglobaltelecommunicationsinfrastructure has undeniably proven resilient inunderpinning aglobaleconomynow estimated to be surpassing some US$60trillion in total production. In terms of online commerce specifically, Forrester Research predicted nearly $7 trillion in transactions in 2004 (inclusive of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions). Visa International alone reported more than $150 billion in 2004 e-commerce activity, with online sales representing 7.4 percent of all transactions (16percent of all transactions crossing at least one national border). Unfortunately, despite such an expansion of legitimate online commerce, there can be no claims of digital nirvana, since the Internet has been equally adept as a platform for organized crime, terrorism, and child exploitation.1 More subversive threats also persist, as criminals deploy an expanding array of techniques to steal identities and victimize both individuals and organizations. Accenture consulting, for example, reported that the total costs from identity theft were expected to approach some $2 trillion globally in 2005. The CSI/FBI computer crime 98 [3.95.39.127] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:44 GMT) Security and Privacy and security survey of the same year reports a reversal of what had been a modest decline in unauthorized system breaches in recent years.2 Not a week goes by without media stories of information mishaps, and there is a growing view, even among the most conservative experts, that cybersecurity—or the lack of it—denotes a highly exposed underbelly of the new economy (Scalet 2006). As a result, the explosivegrowth ofthe Internet's first decade has moderated, and security and privacy concerns are important factors in the trepidation of many to move online (Bryant and Colledge 2002; Hart-Teeter 2003). A 2005 Ipsos Group survey in the United States reported that the percentage of Americans banking online stalled at 39 percent, with nearly three-quarters of those shunning online channels invoking concerns about personal privacy and the secure storage and processing of their financial information (Roy 2006b). Paradoxically, many surveys in the United States and Canada demonstrate that banking institutions are by far the most trusted organizations for processing personal information online.3 In Statistics Canada's 2005 Internet Use Survey, 75 percent of respondents expressed concern about privacy and security online (Roy2006b). A major challenge in discerning the meaning and motivation of such "concerns" is the lack of consensus inherent in any democratic-minded, capitalist society about what constitutes an appropriate level of privacy. From a service perspective, new trade-offs between privacy and convenience are unavoidable, much as they are between privacy and surveillance in light of threats to public safety and security. If a useful definition (albeit one of many) of privacy is "the...